The Beginning of an Odyssey

Even though the author titled the book Odyssey to symbolize Odysseus's trip back to Ithaca, really Telemachus also has a metaphorical odyssey. Telemachus definitely has a character development throughout the beginning of the book. After his father didn't come back after the war, and Telemachus's house is being usurped by the suitors of his mother, Penelope, he changes from a much more quiet and less audacious boy to a much more fierce person that is resulting from his "manhood" as he comes of age.
Homer describes Telemachus's bold statements when he stands up to the rowdiest of the suitors "If, on the other hand, you elect to persist in sponging upon one man, heaven help me, but Zeus shall reckon with you in full, and when you fall in my father's house there shall be no man to avenge you"(Homer 17). He actually stands up to the suitors, and even without his father there, he shows his bravery of trying to rid the suitors from the house by threatening them.
In chapters 3-4, Telemachus soon journeys on his own voyage as he visits Sparta to try and find the whereabouts of his father. One thing that I noticed is the common theme of hospitality and greeting of strangers in the culture of the Greeks. Even though it is a stranger from very far and they do not even know them, they welcome them in a great feast.
I am struck by Calypso's fiery speech against the gods "Now you are angry with me too because I have a man here...I got fond of him and cherished him... Still I cannot cross Zeus, or bring his counsels to nothing; therefore, if he insists upon it, let the man go beyond the seas again" (Homer 61) Calypso is complaining/ her reaction to the way the Gods worked, and that Zeus could dictate everything. This struck me as interesting because it told me the way things work, and her immediate response, hating the gods. Her speech immediately brings us pity and sadness of her desperate plight in her standard society.